


Just a Dream

by icandrawamoth



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Badass Rey, Character Study, Daydreaming, Dreams, Dreams vs. Reality, Gen, Jakku, Jedi Rey, POV Rey (Star Wars), Pilot Rey, Smuggler Rey, it was all just a dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 08:11:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10080851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icandrawamoth/pseuds/icandrawamoth
Summary: Alone on Jakku, Rey dreams of what her life could be.





	

As night starts to fall, Rey lays back in the growing shadow of the AT-AT and gazes into the sky. Stars wink into existance one by one, and for awhile she idly counts them. It doesn't take long for her to lose track, but she's already up to several dozen. She knows each star is a sun, most of them with a system of planets – and the planets have moons, some habitable, leading to a near-untold number of places in the galaxy.

She imagines one of them is her home – her _real_ home from before she was left on Jakku. She wonders, as she has so many, many times before, when she'll see it again. She looks across the stars and thinks of their planets. She can't identify any of them, but she knows the names of ones that are out there. Coruscant, the capital of the former Republic and Empire; Hosnian Prime, the new one; old Rebel worlds like Yavin 4 and Hoth; and somewhere the secret base of the Resistance. The natural beauty of places like Naboo, the desicated wastes of Geonosis...

She wonders if she'll ever see any of them. She won't leave Jakku until her family returns, of course – not that she could even if she wanted to. She could never scrape together enough to buy her way off of Jakku, and even then, even if she _could_ , what are the odds of actually finding someone to take her? It's not like Niima Outpost is frequented by off-worlders.

But she can imagine. She can dream.

Sometimes, in her fantasies, the famous smuggler Han Solo shows up on Jakku looking for his stolen ship – and it turns out the broken-down YT-1300 Unkar Plutt has been holding onto for years is actually the _Millenium Falcon._ Rey helps Solo fix it up, and in a combination of gratitude and being impressed by her mechanical skills, the former Rebel general asks her to come with him, to join his crew. Rey has never been so eager to say yes. In her fantasies, the specter of her family's return fades. _I can always come back_ , she tells herself. _We'll find each other somehow._ Sometimes she imagines Solo _is_ her father, that this is a beautiful reunion for both of them.

Other times, she joins the Resistance. Part of her is a fighter; anyone who knows her knows that. And part of her has no problem putting those long-honed skills to good use. In this story she tells herself, she happens to meet a Resistance operative in Niima one day, just by a chance as she's going to trade in the day's loot. A dashing young man who's as taken by her as she is by him, and they fly off together to fight for good.

She impresses everyone with her flying skills, even if she's only ever toyed with a cobbled-together simulator before. It's no time at all before she's trained properly and part of an X-wing squadron being sent on the most important of missions. Eventually, the First Order creates a terrifying superweapon, a planet-sized blaster capable of destroying whole star systems, even worse than the Death Star whose mere name sends chills down her spone. Her squadron flies against it, fearless and skilled, and strikes the thing down before it can harm anyone. They grin triumphantly on a dais above their fellow Resistance fighters as they receive metals of honor.

But there's one last fantasy that plays across her mind on nights like this. It starts like the pilot one: Rey runs into a man in Niima who claims to be a Resistance operative, though later she'll find out he is in fact a runaway Stormtrooper who had somehow ended up with the droid of an actual Resistance pilot and therefore had an in. It's like a compination of the other stories: she flies them off Jakku in Unkar's ship, and they just happen to run into Han Solo who tells them the ship _is_ the _Millenium Falcon_. In the course of their adventure, Solo brings them to an ancient castle full of strange artifacts owned by a little alien woman.

While Solo and the woman talk, Rey wanders through the castle, feeling a strange pull that draws her. Inside a box she finds – destiny.

It's a lightsaber, the alien woman explains when she finds Rey holding it dumbly, staring. Because when she'd touched it, she'd had a vision. A wild thing of flashes and noise, fear and – rightness. The weapon called to Rey, the woman says. She tells her to keep it.

Rey gets caught up in the Resistance, like in the other stories, but this time there's a search for Luke Skywalker, who has disappeared into exhile. With help from the former Stormtrooper and the droid, she managers to find him, and brings him the lightsaber.

Luke is shocked to see her and at first loath to train her, but he does. The galaxy needs Jedi again, he tells Rey, to keep the Force in balance. And it doesn't take long for her to impress both him and herself. The skills of a Jedi seem to come naturally to her – the lightsaber fighting, using the Force, everything. Like it's meant to be.

Maybe it is. She and Luke return to the Resistance, and they move against the First Order. It's a brutal fight. There are losses. But, ultimately, a _victory._ Rey turns the tide at pivitol moment, and the day is saved. Her purpose is true. She has saved them all.

Rey blinks into focus suddenly, feels cooling sand beneath her back, sees the twinklings stars above her. She snorts, blinking away the fantastical visions. It's pointless, really, to imagine these things. Like any of it has an icicle's chance on Jakku of actually happening. She forces herself to laugh, levers herself to feet, and heads inside. At least if she goes to sleep and then ends up dreaming, it's useful. She'll be getting rest she needs at the same time.

Staring at the stars and imagining never helped anyone.


End file.
